To See You Smile
by Cooptown
Summary: His happiness always seemed to be so short-lived. Those days would be all he'd ever have. Post-Zugzwang ficlet.


_Tick. Tick. Tock. _

Time seemed frozen. One-hundred-point-five days of anticipation winding down toward the inevitable first meeting; a ticking time bomb packing an explosion unlike anything imaginable from either side.

Nobody could move at first. None of them could seem to lower their weapons, to accept that it was over- least of all Reid. Sobs continued to wrack his willowy frame; the body-trembling, soul-wrenching, _I-can-barely-breathe_ sobs.

It would be Hotch that would be the first to break his stone-stiff pose, slipping his unfired glock back into place at his side before slinking forward and kneeling beside the sprawled women, slipping fingers that trembled _just so _against the pale throat of the dark-haired female that had so stolen the heart of his subordinate of eight years. When no pulse of movement came across his fingertips, he took pause enough to close his eyes and give a moment to mourn. They would never know she who had brought one of their own such short-lived happiness. They wouldn't ever find out what it was about her that made him smile, or what exactly was so funny about a penrose triangle.

When Hotch had to look back and give that half shake of his head, just enough to convey the information that they already knew, it had hurt. He saw the frustration flitter across their faces before they slowly diverted their attention to their hurting colleague just as he collapsed to his knees in an aching mess of savage pain_. _

Morgan would be the one to lead him outside, of course; he stood by while the paramedic threaded the ink-black stitch through the torn wound in Reid's bicep where the bullet had grazed, struggling to get his attention while his friend and partner of so many years stared blankly, numbly, at the asphalt as though he were deaf.

When the medic wrapped up the injury, murmuring instructions that he seemed to know weren't being heard, Reid finally looked up at Morgan through watery eyes that could hardly see at all and whispered in a shaky voice that was hoarse with grief, "It's... all I got."

_One-hundred-point-five days... what if that's all I get?_

And Morgan heard his own voice, loud in his head as though he were speaking them again. _Well, it's not. _

With such confidence.

He could do little now to offer comfort in the wake of his earlier promise; the unspoken assurance that everything would turn out as they had all hoped. As though they had the ability to decide her fate with their willpower alone. Now, here he was, feeling helpless like he hadn't in years with the face of a close friend looking to him desperately, and there was nothing he could say.

He watched while Reid hunched forward from his seated position on the back of the ambulance, shaking hands sliding up to fist in wild tangles of chestnut hair as though he were trying to hide, curl out of existence, or sink into the oblivion of misery.

Through the tears clouding his vision, he felt like he was drowning in his own grief. It was hard to believe it had ended the way it had; he'd tried everything he could. It should have worked.

If only he could have forced a little more _passion _into his kiss with Maeve's murderer, perhaps things would have turned out better.

The thought made him hurt all the more; there had been five agents, his teammates, with guns aimed at Diane- the outcome should have been different regardless. To blame them would be stupid; he knew that, it wouldn't have made sense to _blame her death on them, they had only been trying to help-_

But emotion clouded logic and his feelings were running rampant, resulting in a loss of control and a slipping grip on reality that he was unfamiliar with and it was making him crazy_. _

Weekends would be empty now.

There would be no more Sunday afternoon talks that would take his mind away from work for once, soothing his frazzled nerves with thoughts of her; no more jokes that would have flown over the heads of those others that were dearest to his heart.

The gaping emptiness in his soul ached like an open wound and it was all he could do not to crumple to the ground in misery.

He would never know what it would be like to hold her close, to express everything he felt so deeply for her.

The worst part was that he'd never, ever even see her smile.

* * *

**This was written about an hour after the premiere of _Zugzwang. _I never finished it. I accidentally stumbled upon the unfinished version while trying to open my current fanfic project for another fandom and decided to try and wrap it up with the last 100 words or so. Nothing special, un-beta'd. **

**& for anyone confused, I'm Spark Shark. I just changed my penname recently. **


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